An anti-reflection film to be placed on the surface of the display screen of, for example, a CRT, a liquid crystal display apparatus, or a plasma display panel has heretofore been widely used for preventing the reflection of ambient light on the display screen. As the anti-reflection film, there has been known, for example, a multilayer film having a layer formed of a medium-refractive index material, a layer formed of a high-refractive index material, and a layer formed of a low-refractive index material. It has been known that the use of such multilayer film can provide high anti-reflection performance (a low reflectance in a wide spectrum). Such multilayer film is generally formed by a dry process such as a vapor deposition method or a sputtering method. However, the dry process involves a problem in that the process is poor in productivity and hence leads to an increase in production cost.
To solve the problem, a multilayer anti-reflection film obtained by combining the dry process and a wet process such as coating or application has been proposed (for example, Patent Literature 1). However, the productivity and cost-reducing effect of each of technologies proposed heretofore including Patent Literature 1 are still insufficient, and the optical characteristics of anti-reflection films to be obtained by employing the technologies are also insufficient.
Incidentally, the anti-reflection performance of an anti-reflection film is generally evaluated in terms of a luminous reflectance Y (%), and as the luminous reflectance reduces, the anti-reflection performance becomes more excellent. However, when an attempt is made to reduce the luminous reflectance, there arises a problem in that the reflection hue of the film is liable to color.
As described above, a multilayer anti-reflection film that achieves compatibility between a low luminous reflectance and a reflection hue that colors to a small extent and is close to neutral, and a technology by which such film can be obtained with high productivity and at a low cost have been strongly desired.